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The Colorful Mansions of El Alto

Spread out across the Bolivian
highlands, at 4,000 meters, the city of El Alto is predominantly
ochre-red, with thousands of low, matchbox-like brick houses with
unfinished and unpainted facades lining the sides of dusty, unpaved
roads. It’s so drab and monotonous and depressing that residents have
started to liven things up by adding splashes of color wherever they
could. They have also started to design their houses into bizarre
shapes.
Spearheading this new architectural revolution is
self-taught architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre, whose ostentatious
mansions and tacky color choices are poised to take over the entire
city. These buildings are dubbed cholets, from the words chalet, which means large house, and chola, a pejorative term for the indigenous Aymara people.

Established just over a century ago, El Alto was originally a slum and a suburb located above and on the outskirts of La Paz,
the country's administrative capital. But in recent years, the suburb
has outgrown La Paz to become the second most populous city of Bolivia
after Santa Cruz. It is also one of the highest metropolis in the world
and the fastest-growing in South America.
The change began in 2005
after Bolivia’s current president, Evo Morales, got elected. An
Aymaran, Morales gave the Aymara people, who have long been marginalized
in Bolivian society, a new self-confidence. He gave the indigenous
groups greater political autonomy and encouraged them to embark upon
commercial ventures. Under Morales’s leadership, in the past ten years
those living below poverty line has been reduced by more than a third.
By 2012, about 1.2 million Bolivians had become middle class. Mamani’s
architecture is a symbol of this newfound confidence and economic
blossoming.
Some Aymarans become so affluent that they can now afford to build their own chalet.
Those designed by Freddy Mamani Silvestre cost anywhere between
$300,000 to $600,000, and some even more. For the affluent Aymara
merchants, Mamani’s works are a status symbol.
So far, Mamani has
designed some sixty or seventy buildings in El Alto, with dozens more
under construction. He has even bigger dreams for the city— Mamani wants
to design El Alto’s plazas, bus stations and boulevards.
Although critics dismiss his bold colors and extravagant designs as kitsch, others compare him to Hundertwasser.
Some believe Mamani can do to El Alto what Antoni Gaudí did to
Barcelona and Oscar Niemeyer did to Brasília— entirely transform the
shape and aesthetics of the city.
Mamani himself oozes with confidence. "In 20 years, half of the houses here will be built in my style," he says.
Sources: Quartz / BBC / Aljazeera / The Guardian
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The Colorful Mansions of El Alto
Reviewed by photofun4ucom
on
April 18, 2018
Rating: 5